Hi, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Stationery Freaks with myself, Rob Lambert, and of course.
Helen:With me, Helen Lesowski.
Rob:So Helen, we've been on this call for a while now. We've only just hit record, haven't we?
Helen:We haven't caught up for a while. So there was a lot to say.
Rob:And we basically rambled chat about a broad selection of things that we're probably going to ramble chat about again. But they're all, I guess, in some respects under this bucket of is Analogue having a comeback?
Helen:Yes, and I, well, firstly, I would say for us, there is no comeback. Have always been analogue at certain sections of our life living in a digital world, which we do, we both work in tech, there is still a big chunk of my life and yours, which is analog. And we talk about that every day.
Rob:Yeah, and I think in the workplace, we've seen a lot more analog, but I think the thing that spurned this on, and I think we mentioned this in a previous cast, there's a guy called Gary Vaynerchuk or Gary V. Now you might like him, you might absolutely dislike him. He's quite sweary by the way if you do go and search for him. And he's adamant that analog is back, that analog is the next big thing. You know, we've had social media, we've had attention economy, we've had all these different things that people have talked about.
Rob:And his view is that analog is definitely back. I'm starting to see this. I see it all over Instagram. Of course, Instagram is going to feed me the things I'm interested in, which is notebooks and pens. But I've followed a lot of YouTubers for a while as well, particularly a guy called Peter McKinnon based in Canada who basically did photography and films and all sorts of cool stuff.
Rob:And almost all of his videos recently have been about Stationery and they're all doing really well. Know, bullet journaling, notebooks, field notes, pens, you name it. So I think we are starting to see Analogue making a return. I guess this episode, Helen, we're gonna maybe ramble, meander, we're gonna sort of go through the woods and end up back on the main road again, talking about maybe things that are related to why we think that could be. That sound like we should go?
Helen:Does. It did feel very targeted at Helen rambling and meandering around, which is what I just did on the last half an hour of his call.
Rob:I think we both did. We were jumping from work and how nobody cares about anything in work anymore to videos to online video games, which we will briefly mention. We will. Helen, before we do that, Stationery Stories. What's been happening in your world around stationery?
Helen:Well, I have been using day to day stuff, so there's nothing new, nothing changed, I haven't even really bought lots of stuff lately, which is very unusual for me, even the stickers, I haven't bought many stickers. I also haven't bought a new Hobonichi, so anybody who knows about Hobonichi knows that the delivery or the day you can order, all opens on the Japanese site on the September 1. And last year I was there with like a multi £100 order for several people that I know, placing all this order so that we could get it delivered, and this time, the only person I was ordering for was me, which makes the delivery charge challenging, and then I worked out the only thing I really wanted was a new notebook, and actually I can get that from The UK, so there's no rush. So I shall be buying my new Hobonichi for the new year, which I will be getting, because I am rather loving them, But I won't be doing that until probably end of November, beginning of December.
Rob:Oh, there we go.
Helen:I know, very unusual for me, and I feel slightly lost. But there's no need. There's just no need.
Rob:You should just probably just log on to the Hobonichi site and just buy a whole lot of stuff anyway.
Helen:Well, did log on and I did look. I mean, I did build a shopping basket, but I didn't know, didn't deliver is like, I don't know, £35 or something. And it's quite a lot when you're buying stationery. I'm much better off, if I'm honest, going to the Bungu site where I can get most of the things that I was looking at, maybe not the Hobonichi version, but lots of the things I'm looking at, and lots of Japanese branded stationery, less delivery, and they wrap it up in a nice scarf thing, which is absolutely not necessary, but a really lovely touch. I might have mentioned this before.
Rob:Yeah, I think we did actually in the last one. It's those little touches though, isn't it? Makes a difference.
Helen:Was so nice. It was so lovely.
Rob:Yeah, just that attention to detail, it kind of gives you an impression that that attention to detail has gone into the curation of the products to the manufacturing to the way that people think about the products they're selling. I think that's wonderful. It's great. So Helen, what else have I been doing? I tell you what I was doing.
Rob:On my other website on the brand, which I do occasionally, we do mention our other projects, don't we? The other stuff that we've going on. It was originally called Cultivator Management, and I don't really do management stuff anymore. I did for years. I certainly do help companies, but I don't do management.
Rob:And a lot of what I write about is analogue stuff. It's life, creativity, all that kind of stuff, but with a work lens, of course. I did the whole migration thing to a brand new domain name. One of the projects that I'm super excited about is this thing that I've called, and don't laugh because I think it's quite a funny name, It's called the Department of Interesting Things.
Helen:Oh, no, I love it. Love the name.
Rob:It took me a while. And what it is, is basically every month, and it's only for paid members. So you know, it's not that there are two free ones, if anyone's interested. But essentially, I take an interest in object, and then I explore what that might mean. And then weave that back into essentially a masterclass on some particular aspect of work.
Rob:So I've done index cards and how to come up with a great keynote using the index cards
Helen:You of
Rob:see where this goes? Yeah. You know, I've done the London tube map, which if you've never seen the London tube map, which I'm sure everybody has, there's hardly any detail on it. There's no walks or alleys or signposts. It's just the tube and it's not even really to scale.
Helen:It's not to scale either, no.
Rob:But it does allow millions and millions of people to find their way around And all tube maps do the same thing, they're all quite similar. And so I started with that and that led into a communication change, master class kind of thing. So you can see where this series goes. The next one, sort of pick the object first and then I sort of navigate through it. And the next one's going to be a Stylophone of all things.
Helen:Oh, really? That doesn't feel very Stationery related.
Rob:Well, they're not all Stationery related.
Helen:No, because it's
Rob:interesting objects. Yeah. And essentially the way that the reason I mentioned it here on Stationery Freaks is it's take hours and hours to write this thing, but it's entirely designed to be printed out. And I bought some really nice GSM180 ivory paper.
Helen:Oh, really?
Rob:And I print them all out for my own benefit, of course, but it is a digital product. But it is designed to be printed. And I'm sat looking at them now and they do look really cool. Yeah, I spend a lot of time making these things. And it is, you know, a good use of my time, hopefully, because it does does pay the bills somewhat.
Rob:But they also look great. And that was the whole point. I didn't want to have just a PDF you could download. I wanted something you could print if you wanted to. Sit with a cup of coffee, you know, the last one's got 10,000 words in it.
Rob:I mean, these aren't short PDFs, these are sort of masterclass guides. And they look really smart on that GSM paper, ivory, that's what I would recommend. So anyway, just thought I'd mention that because that's been a really fun project. Find an interesting object and then see where it leads you when you start taking it apart, deconstructing it. It's good fun.
Helen:Yes. And I like the idea that you're kind of writing these 10,000 word essays effectively on from here to there. That sounds good.
Rob:It's good It's good fun. Other than that, I've not really been doing much other than oozing over the the labor and weight. Do you know them? No. Shop in London.
Rob:Labor is in, you know, labor. You labor something, and then weight as in w a I t. Okay.
Helen:And it
Rob:is in the most amazing. Go and have a look. Have a look in your browser. Have a look on Instagram. A curated set of slow living kind of objects.
Helen:Tons
Rob:of stationery in there, but there's also like toolboxes from Japan and aprons from wherever. And it's wonderful. It's great fun.
Helen:Oh, cool. All sorts of stuff. Well, I have been wasting wasting away my life, Rob, in my time. I have repurposed my Hobonichi, let me tell you how I've repurposed it before I tell you why I've been wasting my life on. So I repurposed my Hobonichi, it turns out I need a lot of space, so I've divided the pages for each day in half, And particularly at certain times, I need the other half of that page to write out strategies and plans.
Helen:Because I've got terrifyingly, terrifyingly addicted to online gaming.
Rob:We briefly chatted about this to me. And I'm going to let you steer on how far you want to talk about this insane addiction.
Helen:I don't want to talk about it at all.
Rob:But to be fair, I've been there as well. And we did muse about why that might be the case that we Yeah, we get addicted to video games.
Helen:Yeah. And I mean, certainly, it's the same. So we were talking about this fact that, for me, lots and lots of my, the rest of my life has been suboptimal lately, I think that's the fairest way to put it, and having an escape. So you know, you can watch TV and you can do all of these things, Instagram, you know, all of those I could waste several hours a day on, no problem at all. And instead of wasting several hours a day on that, I waste several hours a day and more now on this online game.
Helen:And it's for somebody like me who doesn't join communities, I am not a joiner by any means, I have found a community of people who are fabulous, and I just love playing, I love the problem solving, and you know, there are upgrade windows and all sorts of things and I've planned it all out in meticulous detail in my Paponici, color coded, highlighters, so that you know, when it's really really busy, I have a literally a list of things to do that's pre thought out. And I am found a whole new outlet for my stationery needs, but it's also a really nice alternative to TV, which is TV and Instagram and all of those kind of mind numbing things, this allows my brain to solve problems. Yeah, and it's filling a void for me at the moment, so it's just wonderful.
Rob:It's good, but I did joke with you though, didn't I, that that's the end of your writing career now.
Helen:I know, and it's noticeably less writing, because you know, writing's quite hard. I know I've talked about it before, it's a joy, but it's also hard to start. And so it's much easier to pick up your phone and turn a game on. So I have done less writing in the last, I don't know, four to six months than I have previously in the previous six or eight months. So yeah.
Rob:I suppose the question to that, and I'm going to ask this as a friend, on behalf of the community, the wonderful community of Stationery Freaks listeners, do you have any tension in that what you've just said, where you've done a lot less writing, you've done a lot more playing games, and maybe the game is just filling a void, it's compensating for something.
Helen:It's giving my brain a different direction to play in, so I feel more creative, yeah.
Rob:Yeah. But what's your tension like between those two things? Because since we started this podcast seven years ago, all you've ever wanted to do is write.
Helen:You write. I still write. I just don't write as often or as much. The other thing, and this is part of it, is that the writing that I'm doing at the moment, I have several projects that have been creatively formed, but now need the difficult bit of editing, and that is like soul destroying for me, I hate it so much. It's necessary, it's absolutely necessary and only I can do it, nobody else can do it.
Helen:Certainly for this level of maybe when it's better and I've gone through and edited it once or twice, I can then pass it on to somebody to polish, But for me at the moment, it needs to be me because I'm still telling the story. And that's the problem is that the game gives me an escape from something I don't wanna do. So the writing, if I was creating, I think I would have less problem. So what's smack at the top of my to do list right now is edit. And so therefore my brain will, my little ADHD brain go off and find something more exciting to do.
Helen:Know, killing monsters is much more exciting.
Rob:But I've been there as well well. I you know, we were chatting, I used to play Overwatch, which is, you know, arcade shoot them up kind of game. And I've got three boys, and the four of us used to play the game together. We'd all be on there, we'd all be on the same team. Was great.
Rob:Was really nice way to play with the boys and then the boys drifted off and started playing a different game. I continued playing Overwatch and when it loads up, it gives you how many hours you've been playing as each of the characters and there's about 30 characters in this And I saw one of them, I can't remember which character it was, basically I'd spent at least a month of my life playing that game just as one character. And I had that moment where I was looking at my I had my stationery around me in the living room, I've just been doing some planning and some world domination strategy type stuff. And I looked at all that and I looked up at the screen, and I was like, these two are completely incompatible with each other.
Helen:Yeah. I either want to
Rob:play games or I want to get on and do those things that I've always promised myself that I would do. And I think the other part for me, and this may be a bit sentimental and a bit cliche and a bit cheesy, but I was thinking, what kind of role model do I want to be for the boys? Because as much as I enjoy playing video games with them, am I telling them that that's what life's about or is there other stuff that you could do and where's the balance between them? Because I still do play them.
Helen:Yeah.
Rob:But I've kind of got to the point where I play it on a Friday evening and that's it.
Helen:But that ties in really interestingly to something else that we were talking about, which is this idea of you have always done this for me, which is you, we were talking about how you view somebody else's life when you only see the bits from the outside, so sometimes when I used to work with you, you would be exhausting with your constant pushing for more and better and we could do this and we could do something else, all these ideas, and you know, Rob, that your creativity for ideas absolutely triggered all my sort of second in command things for, I can help you fix that. Yes, I know how we can do that. Let me fix this all up for you. And that is exhausting in itself. And I think that's really interesting when you tie it back to that idea of going more analogue, which is literally, need something that isn't demanding of my attention.
Helen:It's not, or I say that it is demanding of so much of my attention. But it's that idea of, can choose how to spend your time. And I don't know about you, but I see a lot more online, lot of my friends, a lot of people I know who say the phrase that I use, I don't wanna so often, because there is so much stuff that needs to be done, you know, as a functioning adult in society that you don't wanna do. It's really
Rob:hard, isn't it?
Helen:Yeah, it's just that pressure always to try and do more, to try and be better, to constantly, constantly self improve when honest to God, I want to kick my shoes off, drink coffee and play a game for an hour and a half.
Rob:It. That's it. And it's that balance, isn't it? I'm always reminded because when you were saying that, I mean, for listeners, and we don't want to drag this into a whole work episode, but the we were in a startup. And that startup did well.
Rob:Mean, we went all the way through, we did really well, and then it exited. And I think there's a season or piece to this. I'm reminded of Einstein, which is apparently the rumor is, and I don't know whether this is true, you probably need to fact check, but his hair turned grey because he was contemplating a problem so much that he put so much thought, so much effort into it that actually that's one of the reasons why he turned grey. Now obviously that does need fact checking.
Helen:That sounds rubbish to me, but carry on.
Rob:Yeah, it does sound rubbish to me. But in some respects a lot of people do that. They work in seasons where they have like six months, a year, a week or whatever where it's full on intense. You know, you're working, you're working, you're working. Then you stop.
Rob:You do something else. You take some time out. Some people manage to weave that into their everyday so they've got a really nice harmony. And for other people like me, if I have an idea and I want to get it done, I'm going get it done. And then you stop.
Rob:You know, with the company we were talking about, that's what everyone says about startup, you almost condense your entire working life into that short period of that company. You learn a lot, you get a lot done and you do some amazing stuff. But if you don't then stop, well, you know, that
Helen:way leads to to be like, challenge you, Rob, I don't remember you ever stopping.
Rob:Yeah, did. I did when I left. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Helen:We were working together again not long after that. To be fair, if you did stop, I didn't see you stop. You know,
Rob:I think it took a month off and then moved on to some class. But you know, I gain a lot of satisfaction from driving harder things. And but I do take time out. And I think playing video games is great. Love doing it.
Rob:But for me, I'm a bit like you. I've got this addictive tendency. And yes, I I get stuck into this. I mean, I went through a period where fitness was the thing that I got stuck into. Was working out every day.
Helen:I remember.
Rob:And was so fit. I felt so good. I felt so healthy. And then I probably found video games. Then it was all cars.
Rob:And then it was all film and photography. And, you know, that ADHD brain is just It
Helen:is a hyper fixation thing, isn't it? And I am very aware that I am writing this, some fixation until I run out of that dopamine. Same Same with with a the book. Book, yeah. But I still do the fitness stuff.
Helen:So I still, there are, I try and consciously choose when I'm stopping something. And if it's not bringing you joy anymore, I mean, when you were doing your gaming, did you write, Do you write any kind of notes or I mean, I got obsession, I'm truly got obsessional about it. So I have strategies and plans and upgrades and, you know,
Rob:plotting and I guess I mean, the simple answer is no, I didn't. I just played it and enjoyed it. But I guess it depends on the game. You know, when I was playing was sort of arcade shoot them up type stuff. The one you know, I might be a little bit more strategic.
Rob:And, I you used to work at a company years ago where everybody was a huge fan of this game called World of Warcraft.
Helen:And
Rob:I was always stationery. I had notebooks and everything all over the desk. They did too. And I was like, this is awesome. This is my people.
Rob:It's a great company, really good companies to work for. And when I went over and and sort of introduced myself, said hello and all this kind of stuff. I realized that all of their notebooks were strategy stuff, very similar to what you're doing.
Helen:That's me. It's not World of Warcraft, but it's me.
Rob:But what was amazing was that game, you basically walk everywhere. It's not like an action game. You have to sort of travel to far off lands and it's in real time or it was at the time. And so they'd be doing their normal day to day work of building the platforms that we were selling. But in one monitor, they'd have World of Warcraft with their character just running across the landscape.
Helen:From what, six hours at a time or something?
Rob:Yeah, so they'd the character move from one land to another whilst they were doing their full day job. And what was even more hilarious, and I don't condone this at all, and I would never do this, obviously, is they would then phone home to their prospective partners and say, I've got to work late, because we've got a release coming up. Yeah, they weren't, they were just playing World of Warcraft for two hours at work.
Helen:I have to be honest, my family now roll their eyes when I say I'm doing this event because I was like in game events and they're like, oh God again. And I have to be honest, you know me, Rob, I don't join anything. I am not a joiner, I am not a community, an online person very much. This is really nice because this is asynchronous, so I can then go on and join in when I'm ready. And here I am, you know, so I accidentally became second in command again, you know,
Rob:you've got to you've got to start you've to learn say no.
Helen:I'm practicing in the game. No, I say, no, not doing that today. Not doing that now.
Rob:So there you go. Stationery Freaks listeners, if you do connect with anyone on Instagram, our Instagram channel, which is stationary freaks, UK, or substack, where we have the newsletter 99% of the chance person that responds is me. And then doesn't join communities and do stuff. That's not true. That's not fair.
Helen:But I do I do occasionally and I do read it. I you will find me I'm on there like, consistently for constantly for three days. And then you don't see me for like three weeks because I forgot. Yeah, that's the ADHD I can't help it. I you know, if it's not there and visible, it doesn't get it.
Rob:And And just yeah, want to say thank you as well to we've had quite a few people pay for the premium subscription to the newsletter. And we're very clear, hopefully on Substack that you get absolutely nothing extra for that premium. Because we don't
Helen:gratitude. Of
Rob:course, you get lots of gratitude and you can shout out on the podcast every so often. And but we don't have a tiered system at the moment, because neither of us this isn't our full time job. We're squeezing this on on lunch break on a Friday. As much as we would love to have this, I think is our full time job. It isn't.
Rob:So there's no tiered thing there. But thank you so much. I mean, that's just it's great to know that you appreciate the cast so much that you're, you're willing to allow us to keep doing this and pay for the servers to keep this running. So thank you. Helen, this is a podcast about Stationery, and we've spent ten minutes talking about World of Warcraft and video games.
Helen:We have.
Rob:We've books tangentially. So is Analogue coming back? You know, we've kind of skirted around it with everything that we've talked about. But in your view, is this the rise of analog again?
Helen:Do, I think I had a conversation I was at the dentist the other day, where they were just mulling over the fact that you can't trust anything, you know, they hear a really great song, they go to look it up on, you know, Spotify or one of the other platforms, and it turns out it's AI generated. And the disappointment in that is really interesting, so I think that being disappointed that something isn't a real thing, it's AI generated, there is a falseness about that, and they carried on talking and they were talking about the unreliability of anything you find now on the internet, so you can't trust anything and they were talking about pulling away from technology and all these things because the trust value is completely gone and I think that there's really something in that because if you can't believe anything that you're told, why would you go and listen to what, to anything anyone else is saying? I think that's a really difficult place for things to be.
Rob:Yeah, I think so, and I think the narrative is strong coming from all over online, you know, this whole trust thing, you don't know whether you landed on a proper website. Yeah, it's been written by AI with this human on the end. I think video and podcasts are still a little bit more human. But even now we've got AI generated videos and podcasts that you can still kind of see that it's not a real person. And I'm just looking at the stats here and every day there's 100,000 AI songs apparently uploaded to Spotify.
Rob:So, you know, we are being swamped with stuff. And I think you're right. I think people are just trying to get away from that. And I wonder whether it's we're told all the time what to think, you know, social media, we've got influencers, people telling us to optimize everything, people telling us to go on a slow retreat with some goat yogurt and some green smoothies. Everyone feels like they're telling you what to do all the time.
Rob:And I wonder whether this rise of the analogue, you know, notebooks, that kind of stuff is a chance for people to reclaim what they actually think to work out what do I actually think, know, how do I get away from screens and sit with my own thoughts?
Helen:Yeah, you've got that constant restlessness that we were talking about where you're trying to be better, you're trying to push forward, you're trying to improve on your career, you're trying to do better and better and better, and you're surrounded by people who are coasting. And that's okay, because actually that's paying out too, there's no differential for being better, for being trying harder when we were in that startup, we tried super hard and we got this company to a position where they could realize that value, sell out, it was great, but there are aspects that we put in place when we left that are still there now, that have not moved on because there's nobody there driving that, or maybe there's no more value in that, but that restlessness, you need somebody to be pushing that with value, and at the moment it feels like there's a lot of restlessness pushing people to buy things, to do things, to try things because they're not good enough, and I think that whole thing gets so exhausting, I was saying to you, that you pull back and you go, what can I do? How can I spend some time?
Helen:You know, I don't want to do all the grown up stuff that I keep getting told about. What I really want to do is write my novel, or I really want to sit and watch a TV program, and that should be okay.
Rob:Yeah. Yeah. Read a poem. Yeah. Take some photos.
Rob:Yeah,
Helen:I'm you know, the reading again. It's another thing.
Rob:You're not a fan of poems.
Helen:I love poems. I bought a really lovely book actually. I can't see it. So I can't tell you what the title is. I bought a book of poetry about six months ago, which I was really pleased with.
Rob:I'm reminded when we're talking about this, there's, there's a guy called Des Bishop. I don't know whether you've heard of him. He's a comedian. Again, if you're gonna go and check him out, be careful. He's quite fruity with his language and his topics.
Rob:And one of his most famous sketches brilliant. It's all about mindfulness. How we're, know, we're getting bombarded with messages about being more mindful. And he was saying he's about the same age as me and you so he sort of grew up in the 80s. And he said we had no choice in the 80s.
Rob:But to be mindful. You had to you had to return a video to Blockbuster Video, you had to rewind that you sat there rewinding it. That's mindfulness. You start on a bus, you go into work or college or school,
Helen:pay attention to this
Rob:condensation dripping down the window, you're following the rain down the window as mindfulness. You had nothing else to do. And I think, you know, I've tried to get my kids into this place where they've got they've got notebooks, they do some art, maybe not as much as I'd like them to. And they're on their phones a lot. They've got Snapchat and all this kind of crazy stuff.
Rob:But I do get the impression that their generation now, I mean, my oldest is 18, health is really important to them. Yeah. Stepping away from screens seems to be a lot more important to them. Yeah. And I wonder whether there's obviously my generation, your generation that grew up with notebooks and notepads, etc.
Rob:But I do wonder whether the younger generation are getting into this as well and are ditching some of their digital devices and doing a little bit more on paper, reading books, listening to vinyl. I
Helen:have to say I have anecdotally, my daughter who's currently doing a year abroad studying, I was so proud of her, she created a list, a physical list. She said, I knew you'd be so proud of them. Oh, you have no idea. Welcome to the dark side.
Rob:Yeah, I know, you know, I think people are just trying to reclaim that space. Yeah. They're just trying to get away from the noise and yeah, maybe work out what it is that we actually do think, you know, instead of someone telling us what to do all the time, which is frustrating.
Helen:I think as well the idea of, I mean, you were just talking back there, know, growing up from the 80s, early 90s, there was nothing else to do. So wasting time was something that was built into our lives. It wasn't, you were just waiting for stuff and that gave you time to think. So now when we are pulling away from constantly trying to self improve, now to wasting an hour and a half or whatever it is a day on video games, that's still a way of wasting time letting your brain just exist without, you know, I so maybe we're fulfilling it differently now is the same thing is all I'm thinking.
Rob:Yeah, I mean, your you know, your current obsession with video games is one of the reasons I've got a little classic car in the garage, which unfortunately I've not taken out this year is driving to me is that escape.
Helen:Oh, really?
Rob:Yeah, it's an old car, you have to concentrate to change gear. It's got none of this modern stuff on it. It doesn't drive itself for you, you know, it's got no ABS brakes, so you've got to be really careful on corners. And, and you can't do anything other than drive it. You're, you know, roof down, wind in the air.
Rob:It's, it's a form of meditation. It's a way to get out. It's a way to come up with new ideas to think through problems without relying on an AI agent telling you what to do, which probably could answer it quicker than I can. But it's not human. It's, you know, it's what do I think?
Rob:And
Helen:I think
Rob:it's a really important part of this.
Helen:I think you're right. I think you're right. And I think I love to see a wave of analog approaches happening in the rest of the world. I think it would do us all as a human as humanity, the world of good to stop consuming digitally. Well, except for the digital gaming, which I absolutely, I think I'm addicted to currently.
Rob:You see, it's interesting. My eldest did some work experience at a product design company down on the South Coast here in The UK. And on day one, he was given a Moleskine notebook, which I was like, kudos, you know, this is this is a good one. And one of the rules that they have is whenever they get a client brief come in, they're not allowed to use digital for the first two weeks. Oh, really?
Rob:Yeah. They're not allowed to use AI to come up with ideas. They're not allowed to go straight into Blender, which is one of the tools that is popular in the industry. Essentially, first two weeks is nothing but sketching. Sketching, you're ideating, you're sticking Post it notes all over the office, you're prototyping building models.
Rob:There's yeah, and one of the reasons behind that was they realized that actually, when you go straight to digital, you tend to come up with solutions rather than explore the idea space. And we do a lot of this in our work, you know? We People are always coming up with a solution rather than generating a few possibles. And the things that you generate might be 100 times better than the first solution that you settle on. So I think there are some industries where that's happening.
Rob:I think there's a lot of people that do that naturally.
Helen:Yeah.
Rob:And, you know, I've I've got a typewriter. I'm sat next to it here, and I post stuff online, and then I follow the typewriter hashtag. And they're all over the place. People are going back to using them for writing novels and writing blog posts and stuff and starting their first drafts on them. I think a lot of people are just ditching the Yeah.
Rob:We talked about this before, the friction versus reward. Yeah. We've optimized the world to reduce the friction, and what I think we've failed to realize is that friction is actually what generates the reward on the other side.
Helen:Yes.
Rob:And so I think analogue gives us that control back a little bit.
Helen:I think you're right. I think that's absolutely right. Analogue gives you the ability to think as you go, whereas digital removes the time it takes to do that.
Rob:Yeah, and getting that friction reward balance right is actually a very personal thing actually, I think. Do you remember I was talking about that wallpaper method that I was playing around with? Well, the wallpaper sat in the corner rolled up, I keep tripping over it. It's actually kind of useful as a when I'm doing a sort of video as a top down, I can just draw on it. But the whole idea was that it would be a scroll of my notes and journals and insights.
Rob:And the friction was just too big. It was just too much. And I kind of wish I persevered and filled the role rather than sort of given up on, you day six or whatever. Because I still think being able to see that role, the end result would have been great. But the friction was just
Helen:way too But that's the balance, isn't it? So this is why we try so many things and some things stick and some things don't. And then when you evolve, something that didn't work for you before suddenly does, it's worth trying again. But sometimes stuff that's worked for you for years suddenly stops. And I think that's part of your changing in life, changing your, you know, needs your brain evolves, your life evolves, right?
Rob:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And for people like me and you, we find a new pen that doesn't work on that surface anymore. And we have to come up with a whole new system to accomplish. Which has happened to me many times, you know, a perfectly good notebook, and I get a new pen and it just bleeds through. And I'm like, Nope,
Helen:yeah, no
Rob:new system, a new container for this information.
Helen:Well, I tell you, you're just very quickly, we had ages and ages ago, we had a jokey thing about where I got helped out in TK Max from a very nice lady who saw me assessing the notebooks and she, this is the one you want. That notebook has been fab. So once I finished the sort of my writing workshop notebook that I've been using at the time, I moved to this one, which is why I bought it. But the paper is so lovely. I just adore it.
Helen:It's like one of those serendipitous things, so nice. Pen on paper there.
Rob:You know what we need to do, we need to find that lady. And she needs to become our personal recommender for Yeah, personal shopper for Stationery.
Helen:Yep, absolutely. She did an absolutely excellent job. I really wish I had done more than thank her and move on.
Rob:But I don't know about you, I love what we do here. I love the Stationery Freaks brand. I love the podcast. I love the fact that we have some really good guests on. Yeah.
Rob:And the community is amazing and I'm super proud of Stationery Freaks. Have no embarrassment at all of talking about it even though it's a weird name. And, and actually, when I'm doing sales calls, I'm doing conferences, when I'm doing anything, the one thing that everybody's super interested in is Stationery Freaks. Yeah, a one line on my bio at the end, I've got this wealth of start up experience with consulting and all this and two fifty essays on the blog and everything. No one cares.
Rob:Can they hook on to that
Helen:stationary Freaks.
Rob:And to be fair, actually, stationary, the word doesn't travel that well. I've had to explain actually before what stationary actually is, which I found quite fascinating.
Helen:Oh, really? Yeah. It's not a collective word for it in every language, I would have thought.
Rob:I don't know, I don't know, particularly towards sort of Eastern Europe where I've been.
Helen:Oh really? I've had to kind
Rob:of explain it's notebooks, pens, then they go, yeah, yeah, get it now. So maybe that's why we don't get many listeners from that region.
Helen:Comparatively, no. That is. But
Rob:anyway, I was, do you find yourself in stationery shops wanting to tell people that you run a podcast on stationery?
Helen:I find myself, yes. Thinking, well, I could just say to them, have you tried? I know you think, I can't possibly, they don't want to be, you know, sales pitched in the middle of a
Rob:Exactly. That's what stops me even though you know that once you say that, there's gonna be a really great conversation that's gonna be
Helen:really And they're gonna be so pleased. How? You know? Yeah,
Rob:so we need to get better at promoting this thing. Helen, we do
Helen:we do. And I think yeah, less British shyness, I think.
Rob:That's it. That's it. And just one thing on the trying to escape and is Analogue coming back? I was re editing a video. Remember I did that retreat a few years back?
Rob:Do you remember I talked about that? I went to a tiny Airbnb and stayed there.
Helen:Oh, yes, I do.
Rob:I did this retreat and I was re editing the video and then I realized that actually maybe that's one of the ways that we can escape. And then I realized we talked about it, it was more like a lads holiday with just me there. I spent more time in the pub than I did actually doing anything else. And which was great, because I got speaking to somebody used to be the producer of the Avengers TV show.
Helen:Oh, really?
Rob:Yeah. And bizarrely enough, I was one of my favorite shows growing up. My dad had it on constantly. And I really with John Stede and all that kind of stuff. And interesting, I chose the Airbnb because it's near a little village called Little Stopping.
Rob:In one of the episodes, was called Little Stopping. It's not called that in real life. And I chose the Airbnb so I could do a pilgrimage to that village to see where they filmed one of the most famous episodes called Murdersville. And there I am in the pub talking to somebody who used to produce That's so cool. Right.
Rob:It was brilliant. Really good. Anyway, I was thinking the retreat isn't gonna solve it because it didn't solve it for me. And I'm reminded of a book called Wherever You Go, There You Are.
Helen:Yes. Like that?
Rob:By Jon Kabat Zinn.
Helen:A long time ago I read it, yes.
Rob:Yeah, Wherever You Go There You Are. I think the current trend that I'm seeing is escape, go on holiday, go do this, and I'm just there in the back of my mind going, Be careful, because wherever you go, you're there. That's not a way to escape. Don't think this is.
Helen:Well, I've got a writing retreat coming up in two or three weeks. And I'm hugely interested from an analytical point of view to see how well I put the game down and pick up the laptop for writing.
Rob:You know what, it might be a catalyst where you come back from it and writing becomes your obsession again.
Helen:I think it certainly will help certainly because there's no Wi Fi there. So yeah, somewhat limiting.
Rob:I put a video out on my Instagram account, my personal one. And because I've set up a new writing area. Yeah. Because, you know, I've been trying to write this damn squirrel book for about eight years now.
Helen:You're still writing that
Rob:book. Still writing it. I write it in my head every night when I'm trying to get to sleep. Don't know whether you do the same. I'm writing an entire chapter in my brain.
Rob:Yeah. And I don't get up and write it down on paper.
Helen:No.
Rob:But when I sit down to write a type at the computer, I just don't seem to be able to recall it anymore, which I used to be able to do, which is why I was able to write so quickly. So I think
Helen:a lot of that is to do with the fact that your brain is, there is no input at all. There's no other things going on at night. And so you slide down, that's why your brain does it. And I keep thinking if I picked up my laptop and wrote now, I would lose an hour's sleep, but I would get it all down. And then you don't do that because you're tired.
Helen:Want to go to sleep.
Rob:Or the other more sane approach might be to carve out an hour during the day.
Helen:Yeah, how's that going for you?
Rob:Doing nothing. It's not going very well.
Helen:There's too much there's too much to do.
Rob:But what I did do is I did a video of you know, Writing Bureau, which features quite heavily. A lot of these podcasts is now a proper Writing Bureau because I saw on Instagram somebody had a computer in a cabinet, and I thought that looks pretty cool. Then I looked at the writing bureau and thought, that's got a glass cabinet at the top and a desk at the bottom. So I emptied the glass cabinet, and I put my iMac in there and it fits kind of well. And now I can sit at the Writing Bureau with the computer in the actual cabinet piece of it.
Rob:And it's not connected to the Internet, it's not connected to anything, It is going to become my new writing zone. Ah, did that. Yeah, I mean, the video did quite well on on Insta. And I did that about two weeks ago. And guess how many words I've written since?
Helen:I don't know.
Rob:Zero.
Helen:Oh, so it has potential, but that potential has not been realized.
Rob:It was a distraction. Was it was one of those rabbit holes you fall into where you think if I can just optimize my space enough, and it will produce that thing that I'm trying to do. My
Helen:father used to use the phrase sharpening your pencils when you were getting ready to get ready.
Rob:So I think what I'm going to do, because I am more verbally fluent than I am writing, my writing is quite difficult. Good at bashing words out. Not a lot of it makes sense afterwards and there's a huge amount of editing. But when I sit down to talk, I'm actually quite verbally fluent. So what I'm starting to do is use Apple Notes just record an audio file then just get the transcript from it.
Helen:And then turn that into the words, yeah.
Rob:Yeah, and that seems to be working quite well for blog posts. I haven't done that with a squirrel book yet. But speaking of pencils, one last shout out, I think we should probably declare victory on this rather wonderful tour of digital video games and analogue. I found a really cool YouTube channel by an author called Jane sorry, not James, John Patterson. So John, if you are listening to the show, which I'm sure you are because you are a Stationery Freak, You've got a wonderful YouTube channel.
Rob:It's still early days, he's got two. He's got a writing one and he's got a sort of more tactile tools kind of one. Still early days, I think he's only done about 12 videos. But he's already got 7,500 subscribers. Wow!
Rob:And his videos are so calm, they're so fun, and he's doing analogue travel kits, he's doing pencils, he's doing pre writing rituals. It's a wonderful channel. If you like stationery, and you like writing, and you like a calm viewing, definitely give John Patterson's channel a hit, and I'll include that in the show notes and in the newsletter which will accompany this.
Helen:I look forward to seeing what title we give this one, Rob, because I have no idea how we're going to compartmentalize it.
Rob:Yeah, I'm thinking something along the lines of Helen's addicted to video games.
Helen:Oh, yeah, nice. Thanks for that one. I I
Rob:think that'd be quite a catchy title.
Helen:Or Rob's latest procrastination rabbit hole. Yeah. I don't know.
Rob:Yeah. Rob's built a writing desk at this point. Who knows? Who knows? Anyway, Helen, anything else you want to add to this?
Helen:No, I do shout out to my alliance, but this is two worlds I do not need colliding. I won't.
Rob:That's it. That's it. And thanks again for everybody who supports the channel. I know we're not particularly active on social media, but you can find us on Stationery Freaks UK on Instagram. If you go to stationeryfreaks dot com, you will find the newsletter that goes out with every episode that we produce.
Rob:And Helen, it's good to be chatting all things Stationery and video games.
Helen:Yeah, it is. Actually, it's really lovely to just catch up and talk through the things that haven't been going on.
Rob:That's it. Indeed. Right. Well, thank you, everybody. We look forward to speaking to you in the next episode of Stationery Freaks.
Rob:You take care of yourselves. Bye bye. Bye.